Always Crew

by Tijan

  Both girls went toward Jade’s SUV.

  The guys moved in, and without pausing, Jordan came forward and cupped my face in both hands.

  “Oh!” I jumped, then his forehead touched mine. “Hello. Hi.”

  He breathed out, closing his eyes. “Are you okay?” His voice was strangled.

  My eyes darted to the side, seeing the same emotion reflected on Zellman’s face.

  Both were intense.

  “Yeah.” I let out some air.

  I could feel Jordan take a breath. In. Out. And he said under his breath, “Thank fucking God.” He released me, stepping back and he blinked rapidly. “Thank fucking God.”

  His words were whispered.

  Zellman moved in.

  I was expecting the same face-cupping thing, but he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. It was a big bear hug, and he moved me back, carrying me a total of three steps before setting me back down.

  He whispered in my ear, “If anything had happened to you—anything.” He pulled back, his eyes hard and he shook his head. “Anything.”

  I knew what he was saying. Understanding spread through me, and I reached up, grasping his wrists. My hands held tight, and I said just as fiercely back, “Same.”

  He jerked his head up and down, stiff. “I fucking love you, Bren.”

  “Same.”

  He moved forward, cupping the back of my head and he pressed a kiss there. “Shit. I love you.” He sniffed and wiped at his nose once, almost savagely, before rolling his shoulders. He turned around. “Come on. Let’s see to the girls.”

  Jordan gave me another one of those intense nods before they went over.

  I moved up next to Cross, and we watched as Jordan went over, opened Jade’s driver’s door where she was sitting. Words were exchanged. He looked firm. She looked surprised, but she slid out and he took her place.

  Jade went to the front passenger seat, and Zellman took the seat behind her, right next to Angeline. I saw him reach for her hand right before he shut the door.

  As their taillights lit up, Cross put his arm around my shoulder. “You need to call your brother.”

  And, well… fuck.

  CROSS

  This girl.

  I loved this girl, and she was asleep, the bedsheet across her thigh, and I just wanted to hold her.

  All day long.

  Every night.

  Every day.

  Forever.

  I was going to marry this girl.

  My girl.

  Mine.

  One day.

  Until then, I just pulled her into my arms and held her.

  All. Night. Long.

  BREN

  “You want a coffee?”

  His name was Detective Brennan. That was the name on the card he gave me the night before, and that’s who I asked for when I came to the station. It took longer than I thought to get here. Cross showed me how much he enjoyed when I wore my ripped jeans.

  The detective had come out almost right away, but he looked harried. He showed me to a back room, indicated I could have a seat and was now at the door, waiting my response to his question.

  “Uh. Sure.”

  He nodded. “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Both.”

  He left and I pulled my phone out, sending a text to Channing.

  Me: I’m here.

  Channing: At his desk?

  Me: A room.

  I waited, expecting a quick response. My brother was usually good about that unless he was in the middle of something with Heather or his job. When it took a little bit, I was starting to get nervous.

  Channing: Keep your phone on, just in case.

  Alarm spiked.

  Me: What?

  Channing: Call me without him knowing and keep this line open. If I don’t like what I’m hearing, I’m calling him.

  At that moment, the door opened and Detective Brennan came in, two Styrofoam cups in hand. “Here you go.” He placed mine on the table and motioned to my phone with his elbow. “You’ll need to put that away.”

  He wasn’t taking it away. That was something.

  I slipped it off the table, but not before hitting the call button and placed it on the top of my bag, out of view of his gaze. I was hoping my brother was just being extra cautious, but I’d been in another police station when there’d been others plotting to go against my crew. One never knew how careful was too careful.

  “Okay.” He had a file tucked under his arm and he grabbed it, opening it on the table. He took a picture from the top and turned it around, sliding it in front of me. “You know who that is?”

  I looked. It was a woman.

  Dark hair. Cardigan sweater. Pearl necklace. A pleated skirt, one that looked trendy a decade ago, and I couldn’t believe I just thought that. Aspen and her friends must’ve worn off on me more than I thought. She had a purse in hand, in mid-step off a curb and going toward a limousine. A phone was to her ear and she was looking off in the direction of whoever took this photograph, but not seeing them. She was looking at something or someone to the side, just in the same direction.

  “No. Who is that?”

  “That.” He pointed at the woman. “That is Meredith Harper, the wife of Timothy Harper, Sr. and the mother of Timothy Harper, Jr.”

  I frowned. “Why am I seeing her picture?”

  “Because she’s the reason you’re sitting here.”

  I was confused. “Huh?”

  He grinned before taking the picture back and sliding another one in front of me.

  It was Harper’s dad. Same smirk. Same bone structure, except this guy had half the hair Harper did and a bigger gut. Harper didn’t have a gut, but he would in twenty years. He was also in handcuffs, his head down, and his pants undone. Whoever took this picture had perfect timing.

  Harper, Sr. was being led out of a building, two cops beside him, and right behind him a woman was stepping out. Long legs. Tight dress. Hair hanging down. She was also in handcuffs.

  “I’m just going to educate you here. This is Harper, Sr.” He pointed to the woman. “This is the hooker we arrested him with.” That picture was taken away and he laid out three more. Different men. Different women. All in handcuffs. “And this is the prostitution ring that Harper, Sr. participated in and was arrested during. How we found out about this—” Meredith Harper’s image was laid on top of them. “—was because Mrs. Harper here got tired of the cheating, the hookers, the drugs, and when she found out her husband impregnated Harper, Jr.’s high school girlfriend, she decided enough was enough. She came to us, and we pulled him in.”

  I sat back, chewing on all this.

  I wasn’t liking what I was feeling.

  “What does this have to do with me?”

  He took Meredith’s picture away and put Harper, Sr.’s picture back on top. “This guy didn’t like being arrested. This guy decided that he had information on the Red Demons, and he wanted to use it to get immunity for this shit.” He pulled away the top picture and used it to wave at the others. “Harper, Sr. was stupid because what we found out today is that all the evidence we thought we had on the Red Demons was bogus. All of it. Not the information itself. That was real, but Harper, Sr. can’t be used as a witness anymore because what we weren’t told is that Harper, Sr. is also in bed with the cartel.”

  A phone started ringing in the room, and it wasn’t mine.

  Detective Brennan stared at me, his eyes hard, and he clenched his jaw. “If I look at my ringer, am I going to find out that it’s coming from your brother?”

  I swallowed. This guy was the most cop-like cop I’d ever met or seen on television. He was emanating frustration, exhaustion, but a ring of danger. And right now, the frustration was only slightly edging out the air of danger, and so I swallowed. Again.

  And I didn’t answer that question.

  He grunted before leaning back and pulling out his phone. He turned it off, then indicated my own. “Pull it out. Call your brother back�
��”

  I reached for the phone, but it was still in use.

  Channing’s voice sounded from it, “I’m here. I’m listening.”

  Brennan gestured to the table. “Put it there.” He raised his voice. “But you listen, Monroe. Not a word.”

  My brother, for once, was quiet.

  I was also now impressed by this cop. As cops went, he might do.

  “So, we have an issue. One, the case fell apart. We can’t bring forward a witness who will never testify, and we’ll know he’ll never testify because what cartel would ever let one of theirs enter the court of law. A dead witness. That’s who they’d let in. In a body bag, but cartel aside, last night Harper, Sr. and Harper, Jr. were both taken. And your sister here was a witness to Harper, Jr.’s kidnapping. Witnesses said that two of the men stopped and stared at you. Witnesses also said that you seemed like you recognized one—”

  “Bren, take me off speaker.”

  I jumped. I’d never heard that voice from my brother.

  I hesitated a second and he roared, “Right fucking now, Bren! Right NOW!”

  I grabbed the phone, taking him off speaker and put the phone to my ear.

  “Get up right now and leave.”

  “Wha—”

  “Get up! Grab your bag. Get up. Then leave. NOW!”

  I bent for my bag.

  As I stood from the chair, Channing added, “He can’t keep you there. You’re not being detained for anything. Don’t look at him. Walk out. Keep me on the phone as you go. Tell me where you are.”

  I expected Detective Brennan to say something, but he didn’t. He stared at me, his eyes turning a mean shade, and I reached for the door. I half-thought it’d be locked. It wasn’t.

  I narrated, “I’m leaving.”

  I went down the hall, telling him as I moved throughout the precinct.

  I went past the front desk, and I told him that.

  As I went through the door, feeling the sun back on me, I told him, “I’m heading for my car.”

  “Okay. Put me back to speaker. I want to be there as you drive to the house.”

  My hands were shaking once I got in, and I dropped the keys twice before inserting them all the way. As I pulled out from the lot, I said, “You’re scaring me, and I don’t scare much.”

  “I know.” He let out a breath of air. “Just keep driving. I’m going to hang up. I need to call Brock. Is Cross at the house?”

  “Yeah. It’s Sunday.”

  “The others?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see them when I left.”

  “Okay. Just call ’em, but Bren, I have to ask…did you recognize any of those guys who took Harper?”

  I didn’t answer. I made a vow last night not to tell anyone. The only person I was going to tell at a later time was Cross, when that later was going to be, I hadn’t decided. Knowing me, it probably would’ve been as soon as I got home after talking to Detective Brennan.

  “Fuck, Bren!”

  “They weren’t cartel.”

  He was quiet. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay. That’s—that’s better, at least. But I have to ask, is there anything I need to know? And I’m saying anything. Anything weird. Anything odd. Anything that doesn’t make sense to you.”

  I frowned. “No—” Drake. “Wait.”

  “What? Wait, what? What?”

  “Drake.”

  “Ryerson? Your ex?”

  “Yeah.” My heart was beating fast.

  “What about him?”

  I ran down the phone call to him, and again, my brother did one of his silent spells.

  It took until I was pulling onto the block for the house before he said, “Bren. If it was who I’m thinking you recognized, then word did get to them who the witness was.”

  “That cop said the case was done. That the cartel wouldn’t let him testify—”

  “But the information was correct. They’re like the cartel. They don’t let loose ends stay loose. You know what I’m saying, right?”

  Fuck.

  My palms were sweaty.

  My heart was trying to beat out of my chest. “Channing—”

  “No. No. Don’t get scared. I’m sorry. I’m reacting like this because you’re my sister, and you’re three hours away from me, but I’m leaving. I’ll be there in a few hours. Is Dad still there?”

  “Yeah. I think.”

  “I’m going to call him, see if he knows anything.”

  And that just tightened my chest all over again. I felt like someone was squeezing my entire body in one giant grip. Squeeeeeze.

  “Did they or whoever you saw think you recognized them?”

  Again. No answer from me.

  “Shit! No.”

  I pulled into the driveway, parking beside Cross’ truck and I turned the engine off, leaving the keys in the ignition. Each outburst from Channing was setting me on edge. I was so far on the edge, I was off of it. I was in the air, hanging suspended over a cliff. And how I wasn’t falling, I didn’t have a clue.

  “Bren.”

  I did not like how soft my brother’s voice just got.

  “Bren, you have to know that Brennan calling you down there today might’ve been a ploy.”

  “I thought that guy was your friend.”

  “Not anymore.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean, a ploy?”

  I leaned forward. From where I parked, I could see the backyard of the house. I couldn’t fully see the patio table, but there was a chair pulled out. And beyond, was that… I leaned even more forward until I recognized what I was seeing.

  “They’re here.”

  My brother had been talking. I hadn’t registered, and I was the one who cut him off.

  I said it again, “They’re here. They’re in the backyard. They have Cross.” And I was scrambling.

  “Bren!”

  The phone was turned off as I was out the door and running for the backyard.

  I had no plan. No weapon. No ways to escape. I just had me, a panicked heart, as I rounded the corner, my heart stopped.

  The guys were home.

  Or they were supposed to be home.

  But no. No one was back there, except—“Dad?”

  He was standing on the patio. Arms folded. Head bent down. No. He wasn’t standing. He was pacing, and he whipped his head up at my voice, then immediately shot a frown at the other guy with him. Maxwell Raith. Unlike my dad, whose shoulders were tight and he seemed strung-out, his MC president looked anything but. Feet kicked out. Head leaning back, his face up for the sun, and as he saw me, too, he lifted up his arms in a big stretch over his head.

  “Bren.” My dad started for me, but stopped. He sent another glance to Raith.

  I was looking.

  There were three other guys on the far side of the lawn, but they were lingering and talking to each other. A few looked over, but went back to their conversation. One was on his phone and he lifted his head, shooting us a frown as if we’d interrupted what text he was sending. All of them wore Red Demons cuts, all looked rough. And all could’ve been the same guys I saw take Harper last night. Their body types fit.

  “Bren Monroe.”

  Maxwell brought my attention back to him, and he sat up, but kicked out the chair across from him. He nodded to it. “Take a seat.” There was an edge to his voice. That wasn’t a request. It was a command.

  My legs turned wooden.

  The guys behind them seemed relaxed. They weren’t primed for battle, but everything from my dad was saying the opposite. And Raith, I was getting the sense this was another day in his life. No big, no little, just...it was what it was, but it could go bad real quick and he had no problem with that.

  I sat. “Where are the guys?”

  My dad sucked in a breath, but he didn’t respond.

  Maxwell did. This was the Max show, and the authority coming from him was just cementing that to me. “They got a call from your brother.
Something about how you were arrested at the precinct and were already being transported to Roussou.”

  “What?” I frowned. “Channing wouldn’t call and say that. I was just on the phone with him.”

  A strangled gargle came from my dad, but Maxwell ignored him.

  He smiled at me, as if placating me. “Of course your brother didn’t make that call, but one of my guys rigged up a handy-dandy voice app and the message that your boyfriend got was from your brother, just not currently being said. If that makes sense?”

  No. It didn’t, but they weren’t here.

  That’s all I cared about, and with that, I sat back and one of the many knots inside loosened up. Just one. The rest were still tight and wound up.

  “This is about the cop I just talked to?”

  Irritation flashed in Raith’s gaze, the first time I really saw a hard emotion from him and he leaned forward. Resting his arms on the table, he angled his head toward me. “We know you recognized Heckler. And since you’re aware the lengths we’ll go to silence one witness, you can imagine what we’ll do with you. You alone can link us to that kidnapping last night. Now.” He paused, glancing to Derrick, and he took a deep breath before turning back to me. “Pops has been adamant that you won’t say a word, but Pops is new and a lot of the guys haven’t seen him in action. We’ve also done a few favors for Pops regarding yourself and your brother, two bounty hunters who could turn around and track us if you’re seeing a dilemma here. Not to mention that a lot of my men don’t know Pops either and they’re going off my shared experience of living with your father in prison.”

  I glanced at my dad, whose head was low, but his gaze was on me. Those eyes—I flinched. They were heavy and hard, resting right on me and pinning me to my seat. “So, what do you want?”

  “Besides a guarantee you’ll never talk about who you recognized?”

  “Yeah. Besides that?”

  He stared at me, long and hard again.

  There was a whole beat where no one moved, no one said a word, and a shiver went down my spine.

  I was in trouble. Very real and serious trouble here.

  They took someone right in front of me, infiltrating an entire party with masks and guns. They were prepared and they moved almost as one unit. That spoke of a seriously tight unit.